The French startup previously launched the fantasy football (soccer) game Sorare. After partnering with Major League Baseball earlier this year, the company is announcing a new partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Basketball Players Association (NBPA).
Thanks to this multiyear partnership, Sorare will launch an officially licensed NFT-based fantasy basketball game this fall.
Like other Sorare games, players will be able to buy and sell digital cards representing basketball players. Users can then put together lineups of basketball players and earn points based on real-life performances. According to the transferred details, players will be able to collect blockchain-based cards representing their favorite players for free as part of the game, by auction, by purchasing or selling them on Sorare's official marketplace. Users will need to have one player card from each position on the field. The points of the cards will be determined according to the statistics of the NBA players in the real league. Via these player cards, it will be possible to compete in the weekly tournaments in the game.
This isn’t the first NFT experiment for the NBA. Dapper Labs has turned memorable NBA moments into non-fungible tokens with its game NBA Top Shot. Users buy and sell these top shots — the value of these digital collectibles can go up and down over time.
Sorare was worth $4.3 billion when it announced a $680 million Series B funding round late last year. The round was led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, which was joined by Atomico, Bessemer Ventures, D1 Capital, Eurazeo, IVP, and Liontree.
Behind the scenes, Sorare cards are made of non-fungible tokens that are based on Ethereum. In order to switch to ZK rollup, the company worked with Starkware This keeps transaction fees low and makes it easier for people to buy and sell cards. Sorare makes money when new cards are added to the platform. Players can then buy these new cards and add them to their collection.